Ehua speaks to us about her latest EP Clouds, Griot Mag, and the perception of Africa within the western media.
Italy has had a chequered past when it comes to race relations. The country has had rocky political affiliations with African nations such as Ethiopia and Somalia. Additionally, the country’s fascist government policies of the early 20th century and a lack of diversity in the country’s population (of which over 90% percent are white) have also contributed.
Although the Italians have generally adopted a conservative mindset towards their country, youth cultures in Italy are beginning to break down barriers. An example of this is through the music industry, which is now dominated – as with most other countries now – by the Hip-Hop/Trap genre.
Sfera Ebbasta, the most popular rap artist in Italy who has worked with the likes of Quavo, has been criticised due to his lyrics regarding crime, weed and lean. All of them tropes of black culture in the US that are being adopted by Italian youth subcultures. Milan born artist Rondo has also taken influence from American/British drill music, and has worked with UK artist Central Cee.
What is interesting is that many of the artists that are leading the black music scene in Italy aren’t black. With a few exceptions, the top selling artists are of Italian descent despite many afro-Italian artists present in the scene.
Regardless of the setbacks African creatives face on the continent however, things are improving and African artists are now starting to increase their visibility in the Italian arts space.
Based in London, Italian Ivorian artist Ehua is one black creative who is working towards better opportunities for the creatives in her country. GriotMag, that’s she’s part of alongside founder and creative director Johanne Affricot and contributing editor Eric Otieno, has become an instrumental voice for African creatives in Italy. Last year Spazio Griot hosted an event alongside Gucci and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo. A move Ehua has said would have been impossible without the type of cultural work Griot has done over the years.
As evident through her participation at Griot, Ehua fully embodies the arts, a passion she has inherited from her mother. As someone who is, in her own words: “very interested in sound”, Ehua’s creative process often involves using unconventional or DIY instruments to add a uniqueness to her music. In her latest project Clouds, Ehua has used self-recorded samples and organic percussion to create an experimental mixture of rhythm and texture, resulting in a record that is just as interesting to listen to at home as it is in the club.
We spoke to the Rinse FM resident on the creative process of the EP, her work at Griot, and more.
How have things been for you lately?
Very busy! Ever since the release came out my gigs calendar has been incredibly busy. It’s amazing, but It’s also pretty exhausting. The travelling takes a toll on you but I’m just really happy to meet new people. All the lineups I’ve been playing are crazy, I’ve got to hang out with a lot of people that I’ve been respecting for so long. It’s a crazy and mad feeling to have. I’m looking forward to more.
Have you met anyone recently that you have been a bit starstruck of?
I mean, there are so many. This last weekend I was with DjRUM which is someone that I massively respect. I’ve been doing nights with Exit Records, dBridge and all that crew, which for me is just unbelievable.
I’m from Italy originally, I moved to the UK in 2009 and Exit Records was one of the labels that got me to stay. It got me to move abroad and move my whole life, my whole existence somewhere else. To now be on a lineup with these legends is such a crazy moment for me.
I was at Fabric a few weeks ago back-to-back with Kessler. That was also super fun, you know. Talking about people I respect is one thing, but also about institutions in terms of venues and clubs. That’s another thing, you know.
I feel like I’ve been checking a lot of boxes recently which is amazing.
What label is the album released on?
It is on Martyn’s label 3024. He’s a Dutch producer, DJ, and mentor. He’s another one that I have been following for over a decade, and now I’m on his label. It’s mind-blowing for me and I’m very proud of myself for that.
The record is out now and it’s been a journey putting it all together. The whole post-pandemic period has been a period of big transformation for me with regards to my personal life, getting back into gigs and travelling, and figuring out how to make a living out of music and all, it has been really intense.
I feel like these songs are the projection of my erratic, drifting mood throughout this period.
Could you tell us a little bit about the creative process behind the project?
Each song is very different. I would like to say that they represent different clouds of sound. In terms of a sound palette, they all have samples that I’ve recorded myself and they all come from different places.
For example I used some flutes, there is a recorder which is broken and makes all these whistles and really high-pitched notes that make no sense if you try and play them conventionally.
What I do is just play with things and then I might get these moments where something crazy happens and I’m like; Oh, my God, that’s it!
That was the approach on Vola, for example, which was the first single we launched when we announced the EP. Another flute that I’ve used is called Duduk, and it has a very low sound. It almost reminds me of a saxophone or something. I had the pleasure to do an artistic residency in Armenia in 2019 with a choreographer and a group of local dancers. It was a beautiful experience that kind of stayed with me for many reasons. Whilst I was there, I happened to buy this flute in a market which I kept in a box with all my other instruments, like hand percussion and stuff. It was in there for years until eventually, I was like, you know, I really want to do something with this. It just sounds so beautiful.
It’s such an ancient instrument as well that it’s used throughout central asia, not just in Armenia. I felt like it was a beautiful compliment to a track that is super dark. There’s this polyrhythmic nature to it, and it’s very raw. I feel it’s one of those tracks that speaks on so many levels, there are so many layers to unpack. I felt like it needed something timeless to sort of give it this extra power.
Otherwise, there’s a bunch of hand percussion that I’ve also recorded. I love to make hand percussion. I like to collect materials and upcycle stuff that sounds cool.
That’s really interesting.
I love crafts. I’m a person that likes to make things, you know. I like cooking. I like sewing. I love knitting. I like the art of DIY. For me, it’s something that I never get bored of.
That is also the approach that I have in my music production. Inspiration comes from anywhere. I use VSTs and lots of digital sounds and samples, but I need to also give it my own twist. I need to add my own sounds.
I’m just really interested in sound. And I’m always kind of like banging things and just finding inspiration anywhere I can.
Have you ever thought about doing sound installations?
No, I’ve never thought of it to be honest. The opportunity has come up recently, but my calendar currently doesn’t allow me to focus on something like that at the moment, because it would be quite time consuming. Right now I feel like I just have to prioritise things, but it’s something that interests me a lot.
I love arts in general, even the sound design itself. When I was in Armenia, I was with a choreographer, and I was basically doing live production as the dancers carried out movement research. I’ve also composed a soundtrack for a contemporary dance performance as part of a multidisciplinary project with Griot. I make music for films too. I love making music in a free way, but also like to follow a brief, especially if it’s for artistic projects that involve other media such as visual art, dance or cinematography. For me, it’s like a massive yes!
I hope I’ll do a sound installation at some point. I’m looking forward to it, I just need a little bit of time which is something that I struggle with at this moment in my life, but in a really positive way.
You’ve said in the past that music, for you, needs to have feelings and emotions. How have you embedded that philosophy into this release?
Absolutely. Personally, the moment when you have to “let your baby go” and let it be consumed by others without your supervision is a hard thing.
How do you deal with that? I don’t know. I just kind of go with it. Every release that I’ve done so far has got a lot of me and what I’m feeling in that specific moment in it, because for me music production is a form of therapy/self-expression/DIY/finding of meaning, and it’s something really important in my life.
I’ve always had these kinds of outlets. When it wasn’t music, I used to paint. When I was a teenager, I was into visual arts. I wasn’t drawing Renaissance-type paintings or anything, I can’t do anything like that. But I love drawing and art in general. Whether it’s visual art or contemporary art. I’m a massive fan. My mom is an art historian, so I grew up with it, it’s in my DNA.
It’s just another way to express how I feel, but it took me a while to figure out that my favourite way to express how I feel is through music and music production. A lot of people manage to detach themselves from their artistic output and see it in a more functional way. I find it hard to think of my tracks, even though they are club-oriented, as club tools or dance floor tools, as in I make the track because when you drop it in the club it’s gonna make the crowd go crazy. The thought occurs in some cases, but I also make sure that if you’re at home listening to that same track you’ll still get it, even if it’s a techno track or whatever.
There are a lot of layers to anything you know, and for me, it’s really important to give each layer meaning. Ultimately, it’s a mix of all sorts of things. It’s a mix of the energetic, rhythmic charge that you put into it, but also of the emotional tension that’s perceived throughout.
There’s one song on Clouds for example, Leggera (in Italian, it means lightweight), every single time I happen to hear it – not because I often listen to my released tracks, but because perhaps it comes up in posts or somebody tags me in it – the feeling I get is so uplifting. And I cannot believe that I made that.
It’s really crazy to me because I feel like my songs often convey heavy feelings, but the happiness that I managed to convey with that instead blows me away. I don’t know, it’s something that surprises me a lot and I love the fact that I have made something like that.
I have been checking out Griot Mag over the past few days, especially the art section. It’s a cool platform. I was wondering if you had found any artists whose work really stood out.
Yes, so many Abe Odedina, Mary Sibande, Aisha Snoussi, and so many more incredible artists from the global African diaspora, but not only. As for music artists, over the years I interviewed artists of the likes of Claudio Coccoluto, a huge incon in the Italian club scene who has sadly passed away in 2021, Little Dragon, one of my favourite bands, Roots Manuva, Chief Boima, DJ Lag, just to name a few. I interviewed DJ Lag when he came to the UK for the first time I believe. He was 21 years old, super shy, and now he’s DJ Lag. I’m so grateful to Joanne Affricot (the founder, editor in chief and creative director) for involving me in something so special.
Joanne found me after she read an article I had written about gqom and Nan Kolé’s trip to South Africa for Noisey. He went and met all the Durban guys that today we know as Citizen Boy, Dominowe, TLC Fam and all these other massive names in the scene. She read it and contacted me thinking, oh, she’s English. And then it turned out that I was Italian. She was like no way! Unfortunately, I don’t do any writing at the moment and my contribution is very sporadic because I’m too busy with music. But having such platforms is so necessary, not just in Italy, but in any context, to showcase the output of artists from the African diaspora is generally so crucial right now.
The possibility for me to have a pretty close-knit network of Black Italians was huge because it is a pretty narrow-minded country when it comes to integration. We have a huge problem with illegal immigration and the tragedies that constantly happen are massively exploited by politics, and they’re used to really brainwash people about human rights and really basic things that I feel in the UK or in other European countries are given facts that we’re not questioning anymore.
Because of this, it takes a lot of time to see real change in society. Outside of the arts scene diversity is not seen as something that adds value, rather the opposite. But since George Floyd, people have actually started listening, so now we have to push and say what we have to say because people might not be listening for long.
It’s interesting what you were saying about the politics of it all. I feel that with things like the arts, people underestimate their importance of it. People only see the real worth in something through their relationship to it, and politics is very rarely something that all people can relate to equally as everyone has different opinions on things. But the arts or going to a rave for example allows people to relate to each other differently. That’s how the club culture started originally. It was lots of different people mixing together through their love of the music.
In that context, the stuff that you guys do is really important and it’s great to witness. I’m glad that we live in a time where we can see African people represented for doing something good, as opposed to only seeing them in adverts showing that they need money for water and clothes.
And it’s also patronising and undermining to show that kind of idea. That imagery is so powerful in so many ways, you know. It’s supposed to move you, to make you feel pity.
But that’s not what the Continent is like. There might be parts of Africa where that’s the case, and there might be really poor areas where water supplies are contaminated or whatever, and that’s fair enough. We need that sort of help too. But the other sides of Africa need to be shown too. Dakar, Lagos, Johannesburg, for a start, and there are so many thriving places. It’s exactly like being in London or New York, or any other major city in the world, so why just show us the horrible situations of poverty?
Imagine if you had one of these ads like Visit Qatar or Visit the UK and you showed some run down Council Estate here in East London. Nobody would want to come. Everybody would think the UK sucks. But they don’t do that. They show you Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, you know.
The whole portrayal of nonwestern countries, in general, is just so horrible. I recently had the opportunity to play in Kazakhstan last year, and when I got there, I was blown away by the culture, and the history, everything that I was told and shown was just amazing.
I was like, why did nobody ever tell me that you guys did this, or that you guys think this, or that you guys are listening to this? We just get no information whatsoever from areas that aren’t primarily Western or have a spot in our algorithms, unless it’s like some “funny” video on TikTok. It’s a crazy thing.
So yeah. I feel that we’re very biased, and that there’s a need to get rid of all that stuff and start showcasing and championing the true soul and reality of places around the world.
So, what have you got planned for the rest of the year?
A lot of gigs! Release-wise, I have a remix coming out on Le Chatroom by a producer called Augustino. He’s from Italy and the EP is inspired by traditional music from southern Italy, in particular by Pizzica music which is made with indigenous percussion instruments. There’s like a whole scene and culture built around these genres of music from southern Italy that nobody knows about.
My Grandma, from my mother’s side, was from Puglia, where pizzica is from. So it is amazing for me to be part of this project with my remix. I also have a track coming out on the next Fabric Originals compilation that includes Scream, Dbridge and others, and a few more remixes.
Sounds like you’ve got a lot going on. Final question. If you could see your 8-year-old self now, what would you tell her?
Believe in yourself and don’t listen to the people that tell you you’re not worth it or that you’re not enough. That’s what I would say.
You can purchase Ehua – Clouds EP here.
Follow Ehua here.
Check out more from Griot Mag here.